Chapter Three
Highgate Cemetery
Just past dawn…
It was barely six hours since she’d said yes to his proposal at the station.
Seven since she’d been arrested.
And maybe ten since she’d poured herself into his vision all wet and dripping in her grandmother’s parlor while he tried valiantly not to stare at her breasts like they were personally affronting his moral code.
Absolutely none of that explained why Theodosia Blackwood—his fiancée—was now standing knee-deep in brambles with a camera the size of a cathedral organ, snapping photos of crypts like she hadn’t just obliterated every rule of police protocol and personal sanity known to man.
“I told her,” Alaric muttered, the syllables coming out like gravel and iron. “I bloody told her—”
She adjusted the lens, bent over slightly. The back of her skirt tugged across the curve of her—Alaric swore. Softly, in Latin. His hand dropped to his coat pocket, brushing the cool metal of his handcuffs.
He should arrest her.
He should absolutely arrest her.
That was the job. That was the law. That was what Chief Inspector Castlebury had made blisteringly clear in the office not even six hours ago. And yet Alaric ran his thumb along the edge of the steel like it might purr for him.
A dangerous image flashed through his mind. Not of Thea in a cell, but in his bed. Wrists caught above her head. Chest rising fast. Lips parted like she was about to whisper something unholy. Her curls spread across his pillow like she’d been there all along.
Alaric growled low in his throat.
This woman was going to destroy him. She had been ruining him since the age of fifteen, when she punched Oliver Fairfax for calling her a witch and he fell a little bit in love with the way her nose crinkled when she swore.
Now she was twenty-eight, muddy, breathless, and a walking violation of every oath he’d ever taken in Her Majesty’s service.
“You weren’t supposed to return,” he muttered, louder this time.
But, of course, she didn’t hear him. She was already moving again, stepping around a weathered stone angel, pausing to read an inscription, then winding her camera one careful click while the early morning mist curled up around her like she belonged there.
Like the cemetery itself bent to her will.
Like she were half alive, half ghost, and all temptation.
Alaric exhaled slowly as the memory punched through.
*
Metropolitan Police Station, Whitehall Place
Six hours earlier…
“You’re a goddamn idiot.” Chief Inspector Castlebury slammed the office door hard enough to rattle the windows.
Alaric opened his mouth. Closed it again. Because yes. Correct.
Also, deeply unhelpful.
Castlebury planted his hands on his desk, pale-green eyes blazing under bronze-flecked brows. “You think I don’t know what this is? You think I didn’t recognize the expression on your face? That tight-jawed, blue-balled look of doom that only means one thing?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Alaric lied poorly.
“Oh, don’t change the subject, boy,” Castlebury snapped.
“You’re not special. You’re just next. And I’m telling you now, if she breaks the law again, I won’t stop it.
I can’t stop it. She does it again, she’s arrested.
” He stepped closer and lowered his voice.
“But off the record?” he added with a faint glimmer of understanding.
“Marry her. For the love of God, marry her fast. That kind of chaos only gets worse if you let it wander.”
*
Back in Highgate Cemetery
The present…
Alaric blinked hard, dragging himself back into the moment.
Thea was now perched on top of a crumbling mound of stone and moss, knees tucked under her chin, aiming her camera into a broken iron gate like she was photographing art, not a potential crime scene.
She was smiling. Early morning light caught on her cheek. She had the gall to look radiant.
Alaric stalked forward, every muscle in his body screaming conflict. “Miss Blackwood,” he said darkly.
She looked up, eyes wide, mouth parted. Like she didn’t know. Like last night had been a dream and they weren’t engaged. Like she hadn’t been arrested by a local Highgate constable and brought to Metro Station mere hours ago.
“Inspector!” she said brightly. “What a coincidence to see you here so soon! Did you come to look at the crypt too? I think it might’ve been used in an old Rooke Revivalist burial. Look at that iron—”
He stopped in front of her. Stared. Let the silence stretch just long enough to be dangerous. Then, slow as molasses, he reached into his coat pocket and held up the handcuffs.
Her eyes dropped to them, then flicked back to his face. Then, maddeningly, to his mouth. “Oh.”